I actually received a pleasant email from the guy who takes care of the Anoka county parks and it looks like permits or registration or something can be done in order to place allowed geocaches in parks. More later; I need to call him up and find out details.

I strongly recommend helping him get in contact with the MnGCA directly. The primary reason the MnGCA exists is to work with park systems. The MnGCA has a lot of experience working with policy-makers and park system representatives. When the MnGCA works with the park system directly, generally park representatives end up understanding that "permits" and "registration" are usually not in the best interest of both geocachers and the park systems.

The MnGCA is here for this reason. I strongly recommend helping your contact get in touch with the MnGCA.

I called Jeff Perry and asked for more information. He said that a year and a half ago, he brought geocaching up with the board. He even went out and grabbed a cache so that the board could see what a sample hide looked like and contained. The board decided to not make any geocaching allowances in their policy and to not allow special permits for geocaches. Due to the increase in the amount of feedback received in the past month or so, he is considering bringing it back up for discussion and possibly doing a review of other park systems and how they handle geocaching.

It sounded like Jeff wanted to allow caches, but the board is the deciding factor. It also didn't sound like any type of a door was opened with this phone call. You can email him at His.Name@co.anoka.mn.us (replace His.Name with Jeff.Perry) or call him at (763) 767-2861.

Sorry Silent Bob, I didn't drop your name, but it sounded like he's been getting plenty of new people contacting him recently -- just give him a call.

Regarding Anoka County, as with any public entity, it's pretty easy to come up with names, phone numbers, and email addresses for holders of governmental positions such as park managers/directors or whatever.

As one of the main functions - maybe the main function - of the MnGCA is to establish and maintain relationships with these park boards and their individual managers and decision makers, the boards have always taken very seriously the responsibility to represent cachers in the state as best they could. The board this year is no different. Silent Bob updates the status of these relationships regularly so I won't go into that. I will say that it's a work in progress (starting years ago).

Besides the contacts already reported on, there are new ones underway (various stages). We have a meeting planned next week with one county, a meeting with another county is expected but not scheduled, and with Anoka County telephone contact has been made - and a plan to proceed has been discussed (between SB and J.Perry). Pretty much all of these governmental officials (including Anoka county's Jeff Perry) have stated that they receive calls from individuals periodically regarding geocaching (as is every citizens right), but that they prefer to work with organizations. I guess I can understand that. It has to be much more efficient dealing with a group than with one individual after another - each with a slightly different story.

In summary, my belief is that when dealing with governmental agencies such as park boards, it is best to have the group represented by an organization rather than one individual after another. Conversely, I also believe that each citizen has every right to talk to these agencies and their managers - it's just that our group (geocachers in Minnesota) is more likely to get a favorable result if a cohesive message is delivered. We are working as hard as possible to make contacts and negotiate positive change with as many park boards as quickly as we can.

I should note that while the board has discussed the topic of individuals making contacts, the above thoughts are my own - and not a board message._________________-Paklid

Anoka being my "home" county was one the very first counties we ever started negotiating with back in 5/02 when we were the little fledgling organization known as GEM.

In 7/02, I personally hosted the very first ever MN event in Bunker Hills park to show Anoka county system that geocachers would generate revenue for their park system by attracting people who would not normally go there.

I met with the park director for approval of this picnic and to inform them of our plans and to ask permission for free use of all areas of the park. They were all for it and welcomed us, gave me a discount on the reservation fee and gave the permisson I needed to allow cachers all over the park instead of just our little shelter area.

KB gathered all the gate receipts for the event and presented them to the park director to show it was fiscally beneficial for them to have us there. We also carried out bags and bags of gathered trash (which was the birth of what would become the monthly CITO cache in 9/02). Even two of the rangers came by during the event to check up on us and complemented us on the actions of the cachers they had observed out in the woods.

Bobhiker and I contacted Anoka on a regular basis and had many f2f meetings with them. Even Ramsey county actively tried at one time to step in and intercede on our behalf for a geocaching policy in Anoka.

Anoka county has historically answered us with a friendly "don't ask, don't tell - wink, wink" policy every time we met with them in the earlier years..... very frustrating! Basically we were told that the caches that existed would NOT be physically removed by the county unless they were deemed a nuisance, but "officially" there would be no policy or registration. Too much dissension in the board over what geocaching would bring to the parks. Some individual parks wanted it, some didn't.

I am thrilled that Anoka has started negotiations again. It was always so irritating to me that my own county was the ONLY metro county that did not see the benefits that geocaching brought to their park system. It sounds like the present park board will be more open to adopting a policy.... this will be a nice change. Hopefully it will be in place before summer.

I emailed Anoka Parks to get the names of people to contact. My intention is to write letters to each of them. I wonder if they understand how popular this is getting, how many people and caches there are in Minnesota and how responsible geocachers are as a whole?

Here is the Meat & Potatoes of the email :

Quote:

The Anoka County "Parks Committee" is composed of Commissioners Lang, Kordiak, and LeDoux (Lang is the chairperson). The Committee meets monthly, usually on the first Tuesday of the month, starting at 9:00am. The meeting location varies to different places in the Anoka County Park System. The public notice for the meeting is posted at the Government Center well in advance of the meeting so you could call, for example, during the last week of a month and learn when the next meeting will be held and where.

For further information, I recommend you contact the Anoka County Government Center's administration office at 763-323-5700. The receptionist staff can provide you with information on how to contact the Parks Committee members.